Studio Makeover: Background and Week 1

A huge source of frustration for me towards the end of last year was that I had space envy.  We were literally bursting at the seams.  Storage and organization has become a joke.  Doing things that other people are able to do normally was reduced to a circus of Tetris-like maneuvers.  Entertaining?  Fuhgettaboutit.

Desired Space That We Don't Currently Have:

1. Space for my crafting supplies.  I tried to beat this growing collection of yarn, fabric, and paper crafting supplies back with a stick, but it's never enough.  My formerly organized desk is now just a vortex of storage, so something is wrong with my current system.  Even worse, it's spilled into the living area as well!
2. Space to craft.  My desk has become a pathetic catch all for both my husband's and my stuff.  It's very tempting to just throw whatever was in our hands onto my desk on the way to bed.  I'd have to move a bunch of stuff out of the way in order to craft, so it's discouraging.  Addressing this problem will also help with my crafting supply storage problem because I'd be completing the crafts faster.
   
   
3. Space for our books.  We don't have any shelves for our books, so book storage is non-existant: a pile on one wall shelf, a pile on top of our sub-woofer, and then strewn about all surfaces.
   
   
4. Space for my husband's hobbies.  My husband has many hobbies, which I support, but we have nowhere to store all of his fishing and modeling stuff.
   
   
5. Space to store the "bathroom pot."  No, I don't mean the toilet.  We are currently storing our largest stock pot in the bathroom by the sink, because we have no place to put it in our kitchen.  A bathroom is no place to store anything food related, so this needs to be fixed asap.
6. Space for our small kitchen appliances.  They are strewn about the floor of the kitchen, which discourages me from using them.  Storing them off the floor will keep them clean enough where I can just rinse them and be good to go.
   
   
7. More space to store our shoes.  There's this ugly tower of Christmas themed totes blocking easy access to half of our shoe cubbies.  That's not the only problem, though.  We also have no place to store our hiking boots or my knee-high boots, so they're just on the ground for people to trip over.
8. A dedicated space for our "in-between" clothes.  We all have that pile: clothing that we've worn only once that is not dirty enough to put in the laundry but not clean enough to mix in with our laundered clothing.  Well, that pile has no business suffocating my poor husband's man cave!

When figuring out our storage problems, we also made a list of desired upgrades.  When random, mundane things like dishes, towels, or even faucets not only work well, but feels and looks good, they become so much more than just dishes, towels, or faucets.  They become items that we look forward to using, items that make chores so much more enjoyable.  If we're using these "mundane" things everyday, wouldn't it make sense to use what puts a smile on our face every time?  We're far ready to start making some of those dreams a reality.

Desired Upgrades:

1. Our current collection of coffee cups.  We currently have a full set of 6 espresso cups and saucers.  We would like to complete our collection of latte cups and eventually add a complete collection of cappuccino cups.
2. Espresso machine.  We are rapidly outgrowing our machine, however, the upgrade we are considering is bigger than our current one.
3. Coffee grinder.  We currently have the Hario Skerton coffee grinder, which is a hand crank burr grinder.  It has served us well, but we fail to have consistency of the grind and it takes forever when we're making multiple espressos.
4. Dinnerware.  I've fallen in love with a lot of dinnerware, a particular set spoke to me on a very elemental level.  We'd like to get double the amount of dinnerware we currently have so that we can entertain more people when we have the capacity to.  
5. Cat furniture.  Our cat tree is in pretty bad shape.  We would like to upgrade when our current one bites the dust.
6. Coffee table and/or side table.  We don't currently have one, and there's no place to put glasses/snacks/laptop/etc.  
7. Dish washing situation. A faucet with a pull down head and quality dish towels will go a long way for us.

Despite our struggles with space and our dreams of upgrades, my husband and I decided to stay in our studio for a third year.  It was a tough decision, but I know it was the right one for us.  Just because we're staying doesn't mean we have to put our dreams on hold until we get a bigger place or keep struggling with space issues, though.  We can still address them.  Although some of these changes (like adding shelves, changing the faucet, etc.) will make moving out harder, I still think it's worth it.  It's not that big of a deal to install or remove shelving if you just bite the bullet.  What these changes will represent to me is I'm going to have a full year where I'm actually enjoying my home, rather than my home being yet another source of frustration.

So there it is!  We've made our decision to make over our studio.  Can we do it???

It's that time again...

...where I decide to revive my blogs and have a flurry of posts until my motivation teeters less than six months later.  I guess the journal/blogging life is not for me; however, I love to blog (when I remember to) and will continue to do so, albeit in bursts rather than a consistent trickle.  I'm wiser now not to make any new found promises as to how frequently I will post.  It is what it is.  I have been and will always be a horribly inconsistent journal/blog writer.

What have I been up to since April 2013?
Well, I guess a lot.  There were a lot of DIY projects I've accomplished that would have been perfect to post on this blog, but I was too busy...well...crafting.  =P  Among my projects have been making two maxi dresses, starting a cami part way, and accumulating a giant To-Do crafting list.  (Ah-ah-ah!  Not going to tell you what's on it...  You're just going to have to keep coming back to see!)

What is in store for 2014?
I guess this year, I'm going to have a lot of projects to post about.  Maybe a new camera that can take insanely good low light shots will help keep me motivated the whole year.  Maybe I will finally have some progress with my steamer trunk bar.  There will be no resolutions this year.  Who knows what this year will bring?  All I know is that this year is going to be awesome!!!  Why?  Well, it's because I've concentrated on my health for the past few months.  As a result, I feel great!  I'm pumped for a year of better food, better health, and as a result, better time management.  You know what that means:  more time for crafting and (hopefully) more blog posts!

Stay tuned...

Weekend Project: Chair Makeover

Please excuse my grainy cell phone pics.  I brought my camera, but no memory card...

One random day after work, over half a year ago, my coworker asked me to join him to rummage through a "free" furniture pile near our workplace.  Boy, was I glad I joined him, because I fell in love with this chair.  Although the colors were a bit disconcerting, I saw the potential in it.  Plus, I could tell that the materials used were top notch.  The chair was lightweight, yet very solid.  I adopted it and vowed to find a purpose for it and to find a new color scheme.  All this ended up being a very pleasant and easy weekend project.

New Projects!!!

Today, I've brought home a whole host of crafting materials to bring on a new wave of "craftastrophes!"

Sooo.... I didn't win the lottery...

...BUT  I totally hit the jackpot with my finished infinity scarf!

It was a fairly simple pattern, but it is so gorgeous and looks very complicated (at least to my untrained, novice eye).  I used a 5 sts = 1" US 7 (4.5mm) gauge yarn in a mustard color, 3 skeins of 100m/50 g.  It's 30% Bowlder (Jadeite) fiber, 50% fine wool, and 20% silk, which drew my attention because the texture of the yarn was pretty luxurious.  I used 8 mm knitting needles with this yarn to get that looser effect.

Instructions:

Cast on a multiple of 3 stitches to the desired width of your choice.  (I did 42 stitches).  I then K2, P1 (I'm not familiar with knitting speak, so in lamens term, I knit two stitches, then purled one stitch all the way across), for every row until the desired length.  I wanted to be able to loop the scarf once around my neck and still have the bottom loop hit about 1/3 down my torso, which needed all three skeins.  I would check my progress by holding the scarf against me to make sure the length is correct.  To complete the loop, I twisted the scarf several times before attaching the two ends so that it's permanently twisted.  To combine, I left about 18 inches of yarn at the end and started single crocheting the two ends together, but there was not enough yarn leftover for that.  So, I just used the crochet hook to wrap the yarn through the two ends, kind of like stitching.  BUT that's very unorthodox.  I found a site with more legit ways to combine two knitted pieces together:

http://www.learn2knit.co.uk/knitting/joining.php

Enjoy!

Origami Flower Ball Thingy

As I've mentioned in a previous post, one of my goals was to make an origami flower ball thing just because it's badass.  I was inspired by the above YouTube video made by Chloe Dao.

There's no way I have the space for a ginormous flower ball made from whole construction paper sheets as Chloe had done, so I used pre-cut origami paper.  I cut those squares down to four even pieces, because a) I had in mind that it would make a cute ornament for Christmas (which I totally didn't finish it in time for) and b) it's only for fun to see how long it would take to do.

I've been working on it off an on at my desk at work during lunch.  As you can see, I have two of the 12 flowers completed.  Each flower uses up 5 squares, so you need a total of 60 squares per ball.  I cut up 15 sheets of the full sized pre-cut squares into 60 sheets of 1/4 sized squares.  I pretty much followed the video above to make the cones.  Once I had five cones, I taped them together with tiny pieces of scotch tape (which was not visible at all).  I'm going to wait until I have all 12 flowers completed before I start assembling.

Framed Peg Board: Desk Reorganization Project

Okay.  I have a problem.  That problem is my desk.  I swear that it is messing with my creative productivity.  It's true!  A messy work environment makes you less motivated to start projects because you have to clean first before even starting.  Who wants to clean?  Also, it's harder to find things when you're messy.  And finally, I can't even sit at it.  There's nowhere to put my feet.  It's a serious problem.

Here's another angle in case you don't appreciate the full mess

As you can see, it's looking cuhrazy!  There's a giant pile of mail, random frames taking up space, my laptop, tape, paper clips, remote controls...  They are all fighting for space on the surface of my desk (and let's be honest, underneath it, too).  Never to fear, though.  I have a plan (as always).  I am going to add two shelves: one to put my new filing system (just adding everything to binders in protective sleeve covers) and relieve my poor subwoofer of my hardcover books, and the other one to put my sewing machine and sewing basket (to make more room on the floor for my legs and feet).  I am also going to hang a peg board above my desk.  It will house my mail organization system, my office supplies, my cameras, and my paper cutters, which are ALWAYS in the way of something.  Essentially, I want to take the surface of my desk right now and make it vertical.

BUT, I'm me, and I can't simply hang up a peg board, now, can I?  Nooooooooooooo.  I have to make it look pretty.  So, I'm going to paint it and put a frame on it, then buy cutesy filing stuff, and, lucky you (not really), I'm gonna share how I did it!